


cold hands

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 02, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:32:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Discovered as a mole and with no last minute extraction, Jemma finds herself again in one of HYDRA's labs - though not as a researcher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift for the lovely shineyma that got WAY OUT OF HAND. I don't know how this happened. How did it get so long? Why am I such a bad judge of how long a story's gonna take? Uuuuuuuugh.
> 
> But anyway, I love you, Amy. Have a fantastic birthday and I hope you enjoy your fic! <3

 

**Jemma**

Day 01

Bright lights knife across her vision when she dares open her eyes. As if it’s an invitation, her ears begin to pick up noises she hadn’t noticed before. The light clink of metal on metal is thunderous and she tries to lift her hands to block it out, but they won’t move properly. People are moving around her and the swish of fabric as they go has her gritting her teeth.

“Such a shame,” a voice says, and she’s grateful for it because it halts all the other noises, “to waste such a singular mind.” A hand sweeps over her hair and she leans into it, instinct leaving her clinging to any gentleness. She’s too far adrift in her own thoughts to recognize the words for the threat they are. “Try to keep it intact, as much as possible.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

She whimpers when the hand leaves, but that loss is nothing to what comes next, when they finally lift those metal instruments from their trays.

She screams.

 

 

Day 06

She tries to fight each time they come for her, but her body is aching and tired and nothing works the way it should. Four men easily lift her from her narrow cot onto an even narrower gurney and then she’s strapped down, escape rendered impossible. She tries not to cry.

She doesn’t miss the cell - she can’t miss any part of this prison and certainly not there, where there’s nothing to do but lick her wounds and listen to others screaming in their turn - but she’d rather be there than here, in this brightly lit room where they hurt her.

The worst part, by far, is that she can’t stop herself begging. She knows it will do nothing at all but once it’s begun, once the pain has started, her tongue babbles pleas that they _stop stop please stop!_

But they won’t. These doctors - and how dare they call themselves that; for all her complaints about having to act as one when she hadn’t the proper training, she was more a medical doctor than these monsters are - they don’t show her the least sympathy. Their eyes are cold and hard over their surgical masks. They treat her with less care than she shows for her rats.

She hates them.

More than she’s ever hated anyone before.

While she screams and cries and begs, while they talk about gagging her to stop her “whining,” her hatred grows and builds. It’s not a fiery rage that will burn itself out, it’s cold and lingering as ice. It slides along her veins, stilling her tremors and her tongue. She feels like a snowy mountainside, serene and lovely, but teetering on the brink of avalanche.

“There’s a good girl,” one of them says, as though she’s a dog that’s just performed a trick.

The pressure breaks and the last thing Jemma hears before her vision blacks out is a chorus of screams that are not her own.

It’s the best sound she’s heard in days.

 

 

Day 07

The man with the monocle watches her. He’s in charge, whoever he is; that much is clear from the way the scientists scamper at his every move and the guards snap to attention when he speaks.

There are no screams today, only this man standing outside the window that takes up one wall of her cell.

She tries to ignore him, but there’s little to distract her save the ache in her bones and she’d really rather not think about that. (It’s less than it has been. Significantly less. She doesn’t want to wonder why.)

She gives up pride - it’s not as though they haven’t been able to see her all along, what difference is it that someone is actively watching? - and uses the crude facilities installed across from her bed. She looks straight ahead all the while, refusing to acknowledge the man.

He leans back to pass an order to someone nearby, giving her opportunity to pull up the scrub bottoms they’ve got her in, and she scampers back to her bed. She resumes her earlier posture, pulling her knees to her chest and watching the man watch her.

He smiles and it sends a tremor of fear through her. He steps up to the glass to tap at it before beckoning her forward with one crooked finger. When she doesn’t move immediately, his brow raises as if to question whether she truly wants to defy him.

She can still feel, all too well, the way the guards’ hands dug into her arms and calves when they last pulled her from this room; she thinks there might be bruises but she's not keen on investigating to find out. She’d rather not repeat that indignity if she doesn’t have to.

Her cell is set somewhat above the lab outside, no doubt so prisoners can be more easily observed, making her taller than the man. It’s an odd perspective for her and she fights the urge to drop to her knees. It might make her more comfortable, but she won’t willingly put herself beneath him even to satisfy herself.

He tips his head, his eyes traveling slowly over her from head to exposed toes (they haven’t bothered to give her shoes). She squirms and his smile broadens.

She hates him.

Finally his eyes meet hers and he again beckons her forward, all the way to the window and down so that she’s on a level with him. She doesn’t know what he sees in her eyes that so interests him, but she knows what she sees in his: nothing. He doesn’t care at all that she’s a human person he’s locked up like an animal.

She’s going to kill him.

She doesn’t know how or when, but she _will_.

Suddenly she can’t see him anymore. The window’s gone white. She jerks back, startled, and sees a circle of frost spreading out like veins to the four corners of the window. When she dares reach out to touch it, the ice crystals cling to her fingertips and, through the holes she’s made, she can see the man grinning and ordering his men about in some excitement.

She returns to her cot, rolling the ice between her fingers. It doesn’t melt.

 

 

Day 08

The door to the cell has a smaller door set into its base. This is what they use to pass her meals to her and now they use it to pass the means of their experiments.

First comes a plant, a leafy frond that she presumes sat in someone’s office before being sacrificed to her. And it _is_ sacrificed. The plant doesn’t last an hour in the same room as her.

Next come rats, inquisitive white rats just the same as the ones she keeps for experiments. One is injured - a broken leg, she thinks - and she picks it up out of its cage without thinking.

After that - after she lays the body in front of the door to be taken away - she retreats as far from the rats as she’s able. All it does is prolong the inevitable.

The man with the monocle goes on grinning.

 

 

Day 10

The screaming is different today. There’s more of it and louder - and also quite a lot of running outside the window.

The man with the monocle does not run, he marches to the wall beside her cell and taps at what she presumes is some sort of control. He meets her eyes briefly as the window begins to rise and then he leaves the same way all the rest have gone.

She rushes out at the first opportunity, but the swinging doors have already shut behind him and she isn’t fool enough to go rushing through. She has to be smart. Whatever’s going on (perhaps SHIELD has come), she doubts he set her free to spare her a slow death after the base is abandoned.

If she follows out those doors, will she be walking into a trap? A test? Something worse?

And what if she goes back the other way? Certainly running towards whatever had everyone running in terror is typically a bad idea, but this is HYDRA, the things that frighten them do not always frighten her. (Perhaps it’s the team.)

She’s just taken half a hopeful step back across the lab when the doors swing wide in an explosion. Her ears ring and her vision spins and she moans as she rolls off a jagged piece of something that’s digging into her back.

Everything is on fire.

She can’t make sense of any of the equipment anymore and the only things she can pick out that have been spared are inside the still closed cells on either side of her own. A figure stalks through the dark maw that was once the swinging doors. He’s on fire too.

He doesn’t scream or cry out. The flames slide along the surface of his skin like sunlight on water and drip from his fingertips to join the others littering the floor. His shoulders heave as he drags in what she can only imagine is very limited oxygen with how dense the fire is around him and his eyes flash as they scan the room.

The flames on his skin blink out when his gaze lands on her. “Simmons?”

The last time she met those eyes, he was watching her and Fitz fall from the Bus. Then, she was terrified. Now, she’s furious.

It washes over her in a wave that sends ice skittering across the floor and puts out the fires in a heartbeat.

Ward whistles. “Okay then.”

 

 

 

**Ward**

Day 01

This is his own fault. He never should’ve gone back to HYDRA. He should’ve known better. With John gone, he has no friends there, and that became glaringly obvious when they brought May’s ugly step-sister to the party.

He thought he could take her. He was wrong.

And now he’s here, getting poked and prodded and cut open and then poked and prodded all over again.

He’s going to kill every last one of these bastards.

 

 

Day 03

He dreams, even when he’s awake. The pain burns along his veins long after the experiments have stopped and he’s left in a fever haze. He can hear Simmons screaming and sees Fitz standing over him, choking him, telling him he’s to blame. Skye stands outside the cell, watching, always watching. 

 

 

Day 05

He passes out like he always does while they’re cutting him apart. The smell of vomit is clinging to his skin when he wakes up and he can only hope he got one of them.

It doesn’t escape his notice that today he can stand, walk around his cell. Today the pain he’s been left with is manageable.

There’s something under his skin though, something new but at the same time familiar. It simmers like the berserker rage and reminds him of lazy summer days with the lighter he stole from the drugstore.

He sits on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands, and imagines he can see it, just beneath his skin. He smiles. These people are idiots.

 

 

Day 07

They take him back to the room and, like always, don’t bother to sedate him. Von Strucker, sick son of a bitch that he is, likes the screams. He likes tearing down human beings until they’re little more than animal instinct and he likes his underlings to know that’s exactly what he’ll do to them if they get out of line. Works for Grant, it means he’s still conscious to blow away the guards who pull him out of his cell.

And then he maybe has a little too much fun instead of heading straight for the exit. But can you blame him? He spent months in that cell of Coulson’s only to be thrown in an even smaller one by HYDRA and he only got to kill eight people in between. He’s itching to do some damage and they’ve handed him his favorite method.

So he takes his time burning up guards and scientists and follows the way the deserters lead, eager to pick them off.

He’s not expecting to see Simmons.

She puts out his fires with one icy blast and he’s too stunned to put up a proper defense when she comes at him a second later. She’s faster than he remembers - stronger too, that punch _hurt_. He catches the next one. “Simmons!”

Either she doesn’t hear him or she doesn’t care.

Or she doesn’t remember. This is HYDRA, for all he knows this isn’t Simmons anymore.

She swings at him again and he lets her momentum carry her around so he’s got her pinned, her back to his chest. She struggles and ices his hand so bad he’d probably lose the damn thing if it weren’t for his new powers.

She screams in frustration and a blast of cold comes with it. He meets it with a flare up of his own. Cold and heat collide and the air goes thin and the room spins and Grant passes out.

He really should’ve just gotten the hell out of the base when he had the chance.

 

 

 

**Grant+Jemma**

Day 01

The first thing she sees is Ward.

“Morning,” he says with a mocking smile.

She sits up - faster than she’s ready for - and scrambles back on the cot until her shoulders hit the wall. She’s back in a cell - not her old one, it can’t be, not when he burned it up - and outside men are bringing in new equipment for the lab while a cleaning crew removes the signs of Ward’s attack. And hers. She did some of that damage.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Oh, you know, just thought I’d come say ‘hi.’” His light expression turns judgmental. “Come on, Simmons. I’m a prisoner, just like you.”

“But why? You’re …” She gestures to him, taking in all the lies and deceit in one wave of her hand.

“HYDRA? Call it hypocritical but they don’t much like it when they’re the ones getting betrayed. I tried to hand one of the higher-ups over to Coulson for interrogation and was outmatched.” He nods to her. “What about you? How’d you end up here?”

She pulls her knees to her chest and looks to the window while she struggles to remember. Everything’s muddled in her head. She remembers being undercover but the time between then and now is something of a mess.

“May,” she says slowly and is too deep in her thoughts to notice Ward perking up. “They sent someone undercover as May and she- she saw a photo of me I think they said.” She shakes her head. “And now I’m here.”

When she doesn’t offer anything more, Grant offers his own very slow, “So, they picked you up off the street? Just from a photo? Why didn’t Coulson have anyone watching your back?” Trip at least should’ve been there; last Grant saw he was about ready to make his move.

Those big eyes fix on him and it takes all his control not to pull back. It was one thing getting used to being around her when she was out like a light, but now she’s awake it’s a whole new ball game. “I was undercover,” she says like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“ _What_ ,” he demands and overhead the machine suppressing their powers makes a little whine.

Simmons jumps a little and throws a look to the men outside like they’re gonna give a shit about what happens to her. “I-I was undercover.”

“In HYDRA,” Grant supplies because it’s too absurd not to be 100% certain.

She nods.

He curses in Russian. And then Arabic just because one language doesn’t feel like enough.

“Well we were rather short-staffed,” she says, her pointed tone making it pretty obvious she’s talking about his defection.

“It was still stupid. You should’ve known better.”

She turns her pretty little nose up in the air and ignores him in favor of the scientists. He pushes his anger down. So Coulson kept him locked up in that cell when he could’ve had him out here, _saving Simmons’ life_. He’s definitely gonna have to make him pay for that, one way or another.

 

He can feel it when the machine overhead finally turns off. Of course, he was kind of suspecting that might happen soon, given that all the scientists outside are suddenly looking their way.

He ignites a flame in his palm and lets it slide over his fingers, twisting and turning his arm to keep any sparks from dripping to the bed.

“Stop it!” Simmons snaps and his flame goes out in a burst of cold.

He scowls. “I know what I’m doing.”

“What you’re doing is threatening _our_ bed. If you’re going to play with fire, do it somewhere else.” They’ve been sharing, switching off who gets the relative comfort of the bed every few hours, and it’s his turn now.

“I’ve been playing with fire since I was a kid,” he points out, “I’ve got this.” He brings another flame to life, keeps this one small and rolls it between his palms. This time, when Simmons tries to put it out, it’s concentrated enough that it only sputters briefly before springing back to full strength.

“ _Ward_ ,” she snaps, sounding like a huffy mother hen. He chuckles at the mental image and maybe that’s a bad idea because she springs up from the floor to swat at his fire with her bare hands.

“Hey! Hey!” he cries while he tries to scramble back without setting them both on fire.

She hits him. A cold slap across the cheek. Her knees are straddling his hips and she rears back to give it another go, so he puts out the flame and catches her hand. She wraps her fingers tight around his like she planned it this way and her other hand falls to his neck and he’s … not really sure what she’s trying to do here.

Her mouth is tight and she’s watching him, waiting for whatever’s supposed to happen, but she’s not attacking that he can see so he doesn’t much mind. Slowly her hold relaxes - but she doesn’t. She looks disappointed.

“You wanna explain that to me?” he asks.

She must realize then that she’s straddling him because she practically leaps off his hips. Not off the bed though. “If you really have to play with fire,” she says from the far end, “do it over there.” She gestures regally to the spot on the floor they’ve both taken to sitting in as it’s across from the bed but also far enough from the toilet to avoid the worst of the smell.

He goes, and outside, the scientists rush to their stations, jotting down notes.

 

“I wish I knew how they’d done this to us,” she says, more to hear a voice than because she wants conversation with Ward. She really does want to know though; it’s eating at her that there’s science being done just a few feet away, an experiment being run in _this very room_ , and she has no idea what it is.

“Donnie Gill,” Ward says.

The seeming non sequitur catches her off-guard and she breaks her several hour long streak of not looking at him.

“He got ice powers from that storm, right?”

She looks away. “Of course you’d know that. Did you know he’d been brainwashed as well?”

If he wonders how _she_ knows _that_ , he doesn’t ask. “Yeah. Must not’ve gone well for him, they’ve got his body in one of the labs. Or did,” he adds, oblivious to her stricken expression, “it probably burned up.”

Poor Donnie.

But Jemma can’t help the small part of her that envies him. He’s free, no longer in danger from HYDRA. She doesn’t want to die, but it would no doubt be easier than whatever lies ahead for her here.

 

“What the hell?”

“They didn’t do this to you?”

Ward shakes his head, eyeing the rats critically from his spot on the floor. He moves closer to the cage and she makes a pained noise of worry that stops him. It’s an odd position he’s in, on his hands and knees, reaching for the cage. A year ago, she would have taken great joy in staring at his arse. There’s not much to see now, what with the loose scrubs they’ve got the both of them wearing.

Not that that’s why she doesn’t ogle him. She would never ogle Ward, not after all he’s done.

“They set a cage like that in my cell before,” she explains, keeping her eyes on the rats rather than on him. “They wanted to see how long it took them to freeze to death.”

“Ah,” he says with something approaching sympathy. And then, since he’s Ward, he utterly ruins it by asking, “How long?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well the first died immediately when I touched it so don’t-”

He’s already got the cage open and one of the rats out. Like a child watching a horror movie, she turns her face away but keeps one eye turned to him, waiting to see what will happen to the poor rat. It squeaks and tries to escape, but it doesn’t cry out as though in pain and it certainly doesn’t drop dead instantly.

“Here,” he holds it out to her.

She presses her back to the wall and fists her hands in the blanket. “No!” she cries, remembering the way the first rat’s poor little body froze solid before it could even utter a squeak of fright, how its fur broke off in little shards when she brushed it accidentally, the spot of blood left behind after it was removed.

“ _No_ ,” she repeats.

He tips his head. “You’re not freezing-” He cuts off and his eyes go wide. “You tried to kill me!”

She was wondering if he’d ever figure that out. “What are you talking about?” The question comes out significantly more high-pitched than she means it to.

He drops the rat and surges up. He sits on the edge of the cot and grips her shoulders, stopping her from pulling away. She’s a better liar now, but she doubts she’ll ever be decent enough to fool Ward.

His hands slip from her shoulders and - it’s silly, given what’s become of her but - she feels cold. “You tried to freeze me,” he says softly. If he were anyone else, she’d say he sounds hurt.

He stares at her for a long time, pinning her with that inscrutable gaze of his. She shouldn’t feel guilty, not at all, but she still finds herself wishing he’d move so she could get past him without touching him. Not that there’s anywhere to go save the other side of the cell.

He huffs around a smile and moves himself, going to sit beside the cage. She hopes he’ll keep the rats warm and that the other one, wherever it’s gotten to, will have the sense to join him.

 

 

Day 02

Grant’s no white knight and most of his kind and caring moves on the Bus were strategic, but when Simmons falls asleep during her shift on the floor, he’s not about to let her stay there.

She’s next to the window, as far as she can get from the rats by the door, and only half the lab is visible thanks to her fogging it up. Not that there’s much to see, even HYDRA scientists have gotta sleep sometime.

He picks her up, careful not to wake her - he does not want to find out if she can make ice daggers like in the movies - and carries her to the bed.

It’s nice, holding a woman again. He’s little better off here than he was with SHIELD, but at least he’s not alone. Having someone to talk to - when she acknowledges his existence anyway - is a big step up. And he can’t help but linger when his hands slide out from under her. He takes his time arranging her so she’ll be comfortable and his heart twists at the breathy little noise she makes when she rolls into his touch.

He indulges himself and brushes the pale strands of hair away from her face. If he wanted to, he could let the shadows convince him they’re back on the Bus, that she’s fallen asleep working and he’s carried her to her bunk. He doesn’t pretend. There’s part of him, yeah, that wants the Bus back, but he likes the power HYDRA’s foolishly given him - and he likes the look of it on Simmons. She’s vampire pale and her hair’s drifting towards blonde and her eyes …

He lets his fingers trail down her cheek but resists the temptation to keep going to the loose collar of the scrubs she’s wearing. He’s stupid, but not that stupid.

And he loves Skye.

Yes. Right. That’s how he ended up here. Because he was trying to convince her he’s still on her side by sending Bakshi to Coulson. So he loves Skye. He’s just … lusting after Simmons. Yeah.

He turns away and for the first time since the last surgery feels cold without Simmons touching him. Von Strucker’s standing outside the window, watching attentively. His smile grows when their eyes meet and he gives a little nod.

Grant goes back to his spot at the wall and refuses to think what von Strucker might be planning next.

 

Simmons is gone. He wakes up and she’s just _gone_.

He’s standing in the middle of the cell, boiling with an impotent drive to find her, and he can’t do a damn thing about it because he’s stuck in this fucking cell. Behind him, the rats shriek in a nightmarish chorus before going silent. The scientists on the other side of the glass look a little alarmed at how quickly they kicked it. Good. They should be afraid.

He does like Simmons did in the lab just a few days ago and lets the fire out in a wave. A couple of the idiots outside actually jump back. Grant pushes the fire higher and higher until dendrotoxin gas falls from the vents.

 

 

Day 03

“Ward?”

He’s up in a heartbeat at the sound of her voice, only to stop dead. He’s in a new cell, one without any charred walls and with an intact cot. Simmons is curled up on that. There’s frost in her hair and her lip is quivering.

He reaches for her with shaking hands but he can’t get a flame to ignite. The damn suppresser’s on and that means he can’t warm her up. Not the traditional way at least.

He lifts her so he can climb in behind her and she leans into him, turning her cheek to his chest so her cold breath falls over him, giving him chills. He wipes his hands up and down her arms, over her back, tucks her head under his chin and gives her all the same meaningless reassurances he did when they were bobbing in the ocean together. Only this time they’re even more meaningless because all it takes is a flick of the switch and he’s powerless against the bastards who have them prisoner.

“What did they do to you?” he asks when she doesn’t feel so much like an ice cube in his arms.

She rests a hand just above his elbow. It feels like an icy brand on his skin. She’d probably have theories about that, her still being cold and him warm even with their powers turned off, but he just worries it means she’s still in trouble. “I don’t-” She curls her face closer to his chest. “I can’t … think.”

He slides his fingers in her hair, pushes her back so he can look her straight in the face.

“There was a voice,” she says tightly, her eyes half-shut against the light, “and images.”

Something in his gut twists. “They were trying to brainwash you.”

Those eyes of hers clear, giving him a good impression of how horrified she is. “Comply,” she bites out, but she doesn’t sound happy about it.

He nods and pulls her back to him. She shivers there for long minutes while he dreams up even worse punishments for the men outside, before she starts to straighten. She doesn’t pull away when she does it though, she moves up his chest. Her lips brush his collarbone and he’s torn. Half of him says to push her away, she’s his friend, practically the sister he never had, but the rest of him is desperate for a woman’s touch after nearly a year without.

“Simmons,” he says - maybe moans.

Her lips are feather-light at the shell of his ear. “Our powers are too strong for the suppressors.”

He freezes like she really did turn him to ice and she lowers back down to settle against his chest again. Dumbly, he resumes running his hands up and down her back.

It makes sense. Why else would they have let up the conditioning if it weren’t for her having another icy outburst? That explains why she came back half-frozen, she probably turned the whole room into a freezer and herself along with it.

He can work with this.

 

“How did you know?” he asks later. “About Donnie?”

“Oh,” she says in a heavy sort of way. “I was working - unknowingly at the time - on samples of his blood. When it came out that we’d met, Bakshi decided to test my loyalties.”

“Bakshi?” His easy perusal of her body - something he’s kept up and she hasn’t complained about - pauses at the name.

She nods without lifting her head and it pulls at his shirt. “He insisted I come along on the mission to bring Donnie in. I’m afraid it failed.”

There’s something else, something she isn’t saying. “Did he hurt you?”

“Oh no,” she says quickly. “He was violent, yes, but only when provoked, and- and though I wasn’t able to activate it, I do think the conditioning slowed him down a bit.”

Grant moves his fingers to her cheek, forcing her to look at him. “I meant Bakshi.”

She swallows. “He’s the one who-” Her eyes drop and her fingers curl into her palms.

He lays her back down, holding her closer. “He’ll pay,” he promises and doesn’t care if anyone hears.

 

Jemma used to have dreams like this. Her in Ward’s arms, his calloused fingers trailing idle patterns over her skin, his steady heartbeat as the background noise to her day.

She could do without the imprisonment though.

His idle fingers brush up her spine, drawing her shirt up along the way and she lifts her head to meet his eyes, wondering just what he’s about now. There’s something heavy in his gaze, something she’s never seen there before, and her heart stutters in the face of it. His hand moves to the base of her scalp and he pulls even as he lifts his shoulders and then his mouth is on hers.

His lips are rough but then so are hers, and he’s so warm, like a lazy summer day. Her fingers drag at the bed beneath him and her hips shift as she pulls herself up so he can lay more comfortably. One of his legs hooks with hers once she’s properly atop him and his hands twist and drag in her hair in the most delightful way.

She wants to deepen the kiss, to feel if he’s warmer still on the inside, but he breaks it to kiss along the line of her jaw. His teeth nip under her ear and a jolt of surprised pleasure runs through her.

“When they turn it off again,” he whispers and she stiffens atop him. Of course. This is a ruse, a way of speaking lowly enough any microphones won’t hear without their jailers suspecting. She should have realized. “Now look out the window like you’ve only just remembered it’s there and lay down on my chest again.”

She does as she’s told and doesn’t have to fake the embarrassment on her face, though the scientists won’t guess at the real reason. Ward’s heart is beating double-time when she settles her ear over it again and, for the sake of the cover, she allows her fingers to fist pathetically in his shirt. He resumes drawing patterns on her skin.

 

She’s not as exploratory as he is, but she does enjoy the simple pleasure of having a human body to rest against and her fingers find the suicide scar on the inside of his wrist.

“Reckless,” she says.

A chuckle shakes his chest beneath her and she can hear the smile in his voice. “Worth a shot though. I knew you’d save me.”

She props her chin on her free hand. “You were so sure? Even after everything you did to us?” Much as she’d like to, she can’t muster the anger necessary to make her tone biting, leaving it only curious.

His hand slides into her hair. “You’re a good person, always have been. I knew you’d never let me die.” His expression falls. “At first.”

“At first?” she echoes.

He breaks her hold on his wrist to hold her back while he shifts beneath her. “Fitz came to see me,” he says once he’s settled. “He was-”

“Yes,” she says quickly. “I know.” She presses her mouth to her hand on his chest to better avoid his eyes. There’s an aching hollow in her chest whenever she thinks of Fitz as he is now and she doesn’t know how to fill it. Ward has such faith in her abilities but the truth is that she couldn’t do anything for her best friend.

Ward rubs a hand up and down her back. “The things he said and did … and then you weren’t there when Coulson marched me through the base-”

Her head comes up again and he can’t help a chuckle.

“He handed me over to the feds and thought I could do with a walk of shame on my way out, just to make it really clear I’m a pariah now. And you weren’t there.”

She tips her head into his hand. She’s alive, even if part of her wishes she weren’t.

“You have no idea how relieved I was to see you standing in that lab.” He laughs at her scowl. It’s a good sound. “Well not that you were _here_.” He tugs on her hair. “But ice queen is a good look on you.”

“Are my powers visible?” she asks. His are - and quite obviously so - but it’s not as though she encases herself in ice the way he does in fire.

Slowly he pulls his hand between them, allowing the lock of hair he’s coiled between his fingers to go slack so she can see-

She’s _blonde_.

“It’s not all of it,” he says when she snatches her hair from his hand. “You’ve still got some brown in there.”

She was blonde as a child, but this isn’t that. There’s no golden yellow she can see, only pale white. Like snow. She draws breath to ask if it’s progressed since their fight in the lab but a thumb over her cheekbone stalls the question.

“The eyes are what do it though.”

“They’ve changed color as well?” She wishes she had a mirror but, captivated as she suddenly is by Ward’s intent expression, she’s not sure she could bear to look in one.

“Ice blue,” he says, his tone warm. “You could bring a man to his knees with those eyes.”

She’s suddenly and completely aware of her position atop him, of the heat of him against her, of the way his eyes bore into hers. And of the scientists outside, watching their every move.

She rests her head against his chest again and his hand slides into her hair. It feels like a promise.

 

 

Day 04

“Ward?”

Hips move over his and his hands instinctively come up to cup them.

“Ward.”

Lips brush the corner of his mouth and he turns towards them but they slip away.

“ _Grant_.” The word is ice in his ear and sends a shot of warmth straight through him. “It’s off.”

The suppressor.

He opens his eyes to find Simmons lifting herself over him. She’s pale from HYDRA’s experiments and her hair’s a mess from his hands and days without a brush both and those icy blues might as well be on fire. He grins; he’d like to light a fire in her.

He moves up, one hand going around her back and the other cradling her head. “Window,” he breathes into the space between them just before kissing her and laying her down beneath him. She squirms, grasping at his shirt and pressing her hips up into his while her tongue moves in his mouth. She should be freezing cold, but with their powers working in opposition, they don’t so much find an equilibrium as they make a heady storm of cold and heat. He could get lost in it if he’s not careful.

Maybe he does anyway because he’s just thinking about how _amazing_ she is when her hand leaves his neck to brace against the window behind her and he actually growls in annoyance. Her hands should be on _him_.

A glimpse of frost crackling over the glass reminds him what this is really about.

“Right,” he breathes once they’ve got some privacy. There are still the cameras but if the layout of this base hasn’t changed since the time John sent him to “borrow” one of von Strucker’s toys, this’ll give them a good thirty seconds.

“The door,” Simmons says. “Heat it up.”

“And that helps us escape how?”

She lifts a hand to freeze over the vents. “Which one of us is a genius?”

He rolls his eyes and does as ordered. The suppressor kicks on while he’s in the middle and he almost loses his flame, but then Simmons’ cold breath tickles his skin and the fire comes back, strong as ever. He heats the door until it glows. “It’ll take hours to melt it. We need-”

She shoves him aside and freezes the lock. Something inside cracks.

“Right,” he says. “Science.”

She beams up at him and he can’t help himself, he drops a kiss to her lips. She leans into him and it’s the hardest thing in the world pushing her away.

“Hinges too?”

 

She doesn’t kill the man with the monocle, but she does kill several others on the way out. Ward doesn’t give her time to wonder over what’s she’s done. The most he pauses is to laugh and kiss her after she pins a man to the wall with a line of icicles - she did not know she could do that - before he’s pulling her forward again.

“You know where you’re going?” she asks as he burns through a line of guards.

“Theoretically.”

She doesn’t like the sound of that, but she’s suddenly too busy building a wall of ice at their rear to argue over it.

When one of the charred bodies they step over actually lifts his weapon, she freezes the hand to the wall. The resulting moan of agony bothers her less than the alarm blaring overhead. She should worry over that, over the sort of person HYDRA is turning her into, but she’s far more concerned with the headache she’s sure to have later.

Ward drags her down a narrow corridor, making quick work of the two guards down at the far end. It takes even him a little effort to get the heavy door open and by the time it groans free, he’s panting smoke. Outside it’s white, nothing but pure white as far as she can see - which isn’t far.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, one hand on her back. “Your powers’ll protect you from the storm.”

She doesn’t bother to point out that there’s really no evidence of that whatsoever. “And what about you?” If her powers will protect her, his certainly won’t.

He grins, looking slightly manic. “I’m gonna burn this place down.” He kisses her, fierce and consuming. She tries to hold him, but before she knows it she’s out in the snow.

That one moment of disorientation is all it takes. She reaches for the door and finds only falling snow, reaches farther to the left, and still nothing. Eventually she stops reaching, stops trying, and simply walks, fighting the wind and snow - neither of which chill her but both of which remind her a little too keenly of the struggle in open air as she fell from the Bus so long ago.

She hears planes lifting off, taking valuable personnel and equipment away from the base, but can’t see them. The only thing she does see is the fire. It’s a spark of orange light, like a sun in the distance. She imagines it must be the entire base going up.

Good.

She turns back - for shelter, for the hope of food or a way away from here, for him - and doesn’t make it before another jet engine overpowers the howling of the storm. Lights shine down on her and her world goes black.

 

 

 

Day 01

She thinks for a moment she’s still in the snow, but then realizes there’s no wind and the white she sees everywhere is made of crisp, clean lines. She sits up and finds windows, a shower, even a couch. It’s much nicer than the last cell.

“Jemma. Thank goodness.” Agent Weaver smiles beatifically from outside the nearest window. “We were so worried. How are you feeling?”

Jemma spent days picking through the rubble of the Academy, searching the rural towns nearby for anyone who might have seen her mentor passing through. And now here Weaver is, for all appearances healthy and unharmed and not at all dead.

“Alive,” Jemma says. She stands. This cell is bigger than the last one as well, plenty big enough for two. But she’s alone.

“Well.” Weaver sounds a little put-off. Jemma thinks perhaps she should feel guilty for that. Shouldn’t she be happy her dear friend is alive and well? Shouldn’t she be smiling and asking how and what’s happened and where she’s been? She says nothing. “That’s saying a great deal these days. We were lucky we found you. You weren’t giving off a heat signature. Though I imagine you know that.”

There’s a question there - or perhaps it’s an accusation.

“You’re safe,” Weaver says. She pulls her sleeve to show the SHIELD symbol at her shoulder - though not quite the one Jemma’s used to. “HYDRA won’t get its hands on you again. Either of you.” She looks to the side, to another of the windows in Jemma’s cell.

Heart in her throat, Jemma takes a step forward to better see whatever has Weaver’s attention. Grant smiles at her, that same manic smile he wore the last time. Fire licks over fingers he lifts in a wave and she can’t help her answering grin.

They may be prisoners again, but they’ve broken free before. It won’t be long at all before they’re out and together.

 


End file.
